Kenneth
JandaPolitical Parties: A Cross-National SurveyNew York: The Free
Press, 1980: pp. 404-405DENMARK: The Party System in 1950-1956 and
1957-19621

(Text
as published in 1980 citation above)

Like the other
Scandinavian countries, Denmark displayed considerable
stability in its politics and political institutions.
Although the country adopted a new constitution in 1953, the
new system was not much different from the old. The major
structural change was the elimination of the Landsting, the
upper house, and an expansion of the Folketing, the lower
house, from 151 to 179 members. For our purpose, party
activities just before 1953 can be compared with those
afterward, obviating the need for adjusting our time period
to correspond to the constitutional change. Throughout the
period, four parties were especially prominent in Danish
politics, with a fifth emerging in importance toward the end
of our period. The Social Democrats, the Moderate Liberal or
Left Party, the Conservative People's Party, and the Social
Liberals or the Radical Left Party consistently accounted
for about 90 percent of the seats in the Folketing from 1950
through 1962. In 1960, the new Socialist People's Party,
which split off from the Communist Party, won enough seats
to deserve attention, but its role was more important after
our period.

From the
governmental standpoint, the most important of the four
major parties was the Social Democratic Party. Our time
period begins with the Social Democrats being ousted from
government following the 1950 elections and replaced by a
Moderate Liberal Conservative coalition. The coalition
lasted until the second elections in 1953, when the Social
Democrats returned to power with Hans Hedtoft succeeding
Erik Eriksen as prime minister. Although the Social
Democrats never obtained a parliamentary majority and
although their leaders changed because of death or poor
health, they continued to head the government. Hedtoft was
replaced in 1955 by H. C. Hansen, who was followed by Viggo
Kampmann in 1960, who was succeeded by Jens Otto Krag in
1962.

While the Social
Democrats never enjoyed a majority in parliament, they also
never had less than 40 percent of the seats, which accounts
for their success in naming the prime minister. From 1953 to
1957, the party maintained a minority government without
sharing cabinet responsibilities with another party. But, in
1957, the Social Democrats entered a coalition government
including the Social Liberals, who continued in the
government with the Social Democrats following the 1960
elections

Continuity
and Change since 1962

The graph of
party representation over time in Danish Folketing
illustrates that the party system in the late 1970s has
become more complex than that in the 950s. All four of our
original parties continued through 1978, but three new
parties won enough seats and lasted long enough to qualify
for study after 1962.

Original
Parties, Continuing

201
Social Democratic Party. The major governmental
party during 1950 to 1962, the Social Democrats lost the
government to a coalition of bourgeois parties in 1968. The
party returned to office with a minority government after
the 1971 elections but lost power in 1973. In 1975 and 1977
the Social Democrats again formed minority governments with
support from center-right parties.

202
Liberal Party. The Liberal Party (Venstre) tended
to decline in strength after 1962, but it did participate in
coalition governments with the Conservatives and Radicals
(1968-1971), formed a minority government (1973-1975), and
entered an unusual coalition with the Social Democrats in
1978.

203
Conservative Party. Conservative parliamentary
strength held steady at around 20 percent of the is until
the 1970s, when new parties siphoned off support and dropped
the party to under 10 percent of seats.

204
Radical Liberal Party. In the late 1960s
and early 1970s, the Radical Liberals (Radical Venstre)
enjoyed a doubling of their parliamentary strength to about
15 percent of the seats, and the party headed a governmental
coalition in 1968-1971. But the party's support fell sharply
afterward to about 4 percent of the votes and seats.

New
Parties, Continuing

205
Socialist People's Party. The Socialist People's
Party was formed in 1958 by former Communists who split from
the party after the Hungarian revolt. The party hovered
between 5 and 10 percent of the seats, with some evidence of
recent decline.

206
Progress Party. The Progress Party burst upon the
Danish political scene in 1973 as a tax protest party and
emerged as the second largest party with 16 percent of the
votes. The party retained most of its strength over the next
two elections, but it has not been regarded as a responsible
partner in coalition governments.

207 Center
Democrats. Also formed in 1973 to protest high taxes and
the "leftist" tendencies of Danish government, the Center
Democrats were only about half as successful as the Progress
Party, but they lasted through subsequent elections in 1975
and 1977.

Summary

The rise of
several new parties in Denmark has unsteadied a previously
stable multiparty system. Eleven parties won at least five
seats in the last election in 1977, and the largest party
(Social Democrats) held only 37 percent of the seats.
Despite the stability offered by continuation of the same
four parties for most of this century, Denmark has recently
entered an era of party fragmentation.

1. Our study of party politics in Denmark
is based on a file of 1,191 pages from 78 documents, all
of which are in English except 1 in French (see Table
1.3). The bibliographic search and indexing of material
for the file was done by Carolyn Billingsley Smith, with
the assistance of Jean Jacobsohn and Judith Newsome
Gillespie. Smith coded the Danish parties on the
variables in the ICPP conceptual framework. Kenneth
Miller was our outside consultant.